DANCE REVIEWS : Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo at Wiltern

You thought Yale had cornered the market on semiotics? Not to worry. That last word in literary analysis is alive and well at Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

And when the still-hilarious band of fine-feathered female impersonators touched down at the Wiltern Theatre on Friday, it introduced a semiotician’s dream: “Isadora Deconstructed.”

We recognize the Brahms waltzes with which Lori Belilove’s choreography strikes the proper note of free-spirit lyricism. And left in the loving care of Nina Enimenimynimova (yes, that’s eeny-meeny-miny-mova), this evocation of America’s first barefoot export is just what one might predict.

The Trocks’ Isadora boasts a passably feminine face--not the rugged, square-jawed prototype that spells comic incongruity--and “she” has mountains of long curly locks. At first sight of this creature frolicking in her red satin blouson dress comes an image: Mark Morris, perchance?

But no. Our Isadora is busy swatting flies and blowing kisses to the audience. Early on, she even rewrites history--off, off, dread scarf that could cause strangulation.

Her hysteria had nothing on Natch Taylor’s “Gambol,” however, the other newsworthy item. This essay in goony gloom and moony modernism, captioned by Beethoven’s momentous “Tempest” Sonata, deals in portable statuary--the more awkward the better. The allegro finale, which is brand-new, breaks out in lively unison maneuvers, death-defying catches and leapfrog, of course.

Nevertheless, the company is funniest when it grapples with ballet’s affectations and conceits, as did prima Ludmila Bolshoya in the familiar, high-camp, tutu-and-tiara staples.